


Nest

by flashindie



Series: The Center and Circumference [4]
Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: Domestic, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:28:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25890601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flashindie/pseuds/flashindie
Summary: Drabbles and fics set in The Center and Circumference universe.High school and beyond!
Relationships: Beth Boland/Rio
Series: The Center and Circumference [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1416943
Comments: 40
Kudos: 218





	1. Just Take Time

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt: 8. “Lay back, relax, let me take care of you.”

And okay.

If the look on Rio’s face is anything to go by, she _really_ needs to pull herself together.

“You’re enjoyin’ this,” he tells her, eyebrows furrowed and jaw locked, and well, Beth thinks. _Yes_ , but she’s not sure admitting to that is going to end in anything other than a fight right now.

“Of course not,” she replies, reaching for another one of the trays of ice she’d brought in earlier. She turns it over in her hands, cracks the plastic until the cubes tumble out into the tea towel she’d laid out on her bedside table, joining all their half-melted brothers. “You know I don’t like seeing you hurt.”

The words are enough to make Rio grumble, even as he shifts forwards on the edge of their bed, twisting so that he doesn’t have to watch Beth carefully wrap the tea towel back up, laying a firm knot in the end, before scooting back onto the bed to spoon behind him. She takes in his bare back, her gaze fixing on his red, swollen shoulder (while carefully avoiding that new, familiar mark on it), before pressing the makeshift icepack gently against the muscle, biting back a grin as he hisses in a breath between his teeth.

She really wasn’t lying. She doesn’t like seeing him hurt, but, y’know - -

She also likes being _right_.

“Just maybe next time you’ll listen to me,” she hums, and she probably should’ve predicted Rio’s grunt as he rolls himself off the bed, swiping the icepack from her hands to hold it against his shoulder himself, which is frankly ridiculous, Beth thinks, because it’s not like he can reach it in his state. She huffs, grinning a little as she props herself up on her elbow, watching as Rio glares down at her.

“It ain’t nothin’,” he tells her, and Beth rolls her eyes.

“Nothing serious, sure,” she replies dryly. “If you aren’t going to lie down, I can run you a bath. Throw in some Epsom salts.”

“He just hit it at an angle.”

“Mmhmm, or maybe you’re getting too old to be roughhousing with teenage boys. And Jane.”

If Rio had levelled her with that look ten years ago, it might’ve given her pause, but all it does now is make her smile a little too sweetly, prop herself better up on the bed, smooth a hand down the sheets beside her, patting it for him to come back.

The thing is, it really _had_ been an accident.

With Kenny going away to college in a few weeks and Emma about to start highschool, and Marcus and Jane about to start their last year of middle school, the energy in the house had been fraught to say the least. A mess of chatter and activity and packing and organising and god, _so much shopping_ , whether that be for Kenny’s dorm room, or for school supplies, or a hockey stick for Jane or new ballet slippers for Emma or the cream to try and get Danny’s eczema under control, or that ridiculous shampoo that Marcus likes - -

It had just been _exhausting_.

Even the sound of their five voices bickering and worrying and yelling over video games and clothes and pantry snacks had started driving her and Rio _both_ to despair.

So when Rio had suggested they burn some of that energy off with an impromptu game of backyard football, Beth had only briefly hesitated.

It had only been six months ago after all that Rio had had the incident with Orion, the one that had laid him up in hospital for three weeks and had Beth close to despair, but he’d recovered, she promised herself. He _had_ , and what was the worse that could happen? Still, she’d told him to be careful, which she _knew_ was basically the equivalent of telling Jane to sit still, but anyway.

She didn’t imagine being leapt on by five-foot-four of 13-year-old Marcus would quite floor him in the way that it had.

(And okay, maybe her heart had leapt in her throat when she’d seen it through the kitchen window, when she’d heard Emma’s gasp, seen Kenny run over, Marcus’ face pale as he’d tugged him off him, as Kenny and Danny had helped Rio up).

“Carmen did say it would take a while for your shoulder to heal,” she adds, voice a little softer now, and Rio huffs out a breath, but this time when Beth pats the bed beside her, he sits back down, awkwardly adjusting the icepack until she takes over. It’s too easy then to lift it off, to see the skin red from the cold, to feel her chest twist as her eyes lock on to the deep, jagged knife wound in the back of his shoulder, the scar gnarled, twisted, jaggy.

She presses a kiss to it, feels the cool, damp of his skin, feels him exhale beneath her lips. Raising her hand, she presses gentle, massaging fingers into the muscles around it, hears him hiss again, but doesn’t revel in it this time.

“You should lie down,” she tells him. “Relax. Let me take care of you.”

He doesn’t look at her right away, his body contorted, and Beth sighs when she feels his good arm wrap behind him to grip her thigh, to use her body to leverage back better onto the bed, to sink into her touch, his back pressing into her chest.

“Yeah?” he asks, peering back over his shoulder, eyes dark, a playful spark in them even if it is a little shadowed, a little further away than she’d like it. “How you gonna do that?”

He lets his eyes drip down to the neck of her robe, to where there’s the barest hint of cleavage visible, and Beth arches an eyebrow innocently, before promptly pressing the icepack to his shoulder again, just to hear him grunt. 


	2. In Lumine

It’s the smallest sound, the tiniest electronic _blip_ , but it’s enough to slice through the fabric of sleep. Enough to make his mind whir, his heart stutter, his eyes snap open to the dark expanse of their bedroom.

And it’s probably nothing, he tells himself, gently sliding his arm off of Elizabeth’s waist and rolling over in the bed to grab his phone off his bedside table with one hand, and his gun from under the mattress with the other. He doesn’t cock it yet – instead pulls up the security app on his cell, and it’s just what he figured – the security system’s been deactivated.

Beside him, Elizabeth stretches a little, snuffles in her sleep, and Rio curves further away from her, dropping his cell low so that the glow of the screen is hidden from her, enough to dry his eyes out but spare hers as he flicks through the cameras around the house, looking out for whoever has just let themselves in, and he’s waiting to see Kenny’s broad shoulders and lanky shuffle, no doubt dippin’ out on college (a-fuckin’-gain) only - -

Huh.

This person isn’t broad shouldered, and they certainly ain’t shufflin’.

Or at least - - _one_ of them isn’t.

He huffs out a breath, twisting down under the bed to shove the gun back beneath the mattress before rolling onto his back again, dropping his cell to his chest only long enough to press the heels of his hands hard against his eye sockets, feel the pressure there, because shit, it’s been a _week_ , and this is the last thing he wants to handle, especially when it ain’t even one of _his_ and - -

A cold toe touches his bare calf, before quickly disappearing, and Rio’s neck twists, eyes squinting in suspicion, watching as Elizabeth lays still, her back to him, her chest rising, falling in steady breaths, the shoe string strap of her nightie halfway down her shoulder, and he knows if he sat up, he’d be rewarded with the starting curve of her pale, smooth breast, which, well, don’t that just say it all?

“Yeah, I know you’re awake,” he drawls, and the steady inhale, exhale of Elizabeth’s chest doesn’t falter, not for a minute, maybe two, but she’s gotta feel the weight of his unimpressed gaze on her, because eventually she does peel an eyelid open, just enough to squint back at him.

“It’s _your turn_ ,” she says, voice clear, and damn, how long has she been awake if it’s lost that silky little edge it gets when she really is half asleep? Rio huffs out a breath, arching an eyebrow as he grabs his cell and moves to spoon behind her again, pushing a leg between hers until her ass sits awkwardly half on his crotch, half against his hip in that way he knows pisses her off (always complainin’ about his bony hips and his big dick – not exactly in those words, but he hears her, and besides, he isn’t entirely adverse to the sentiment, he thinks a little smugly. After all, it ain’t like she complains about either when the latter’s inside her), and dropping a heavy arm around her waist in the process.

“Oh, is it?” he hums, revelling a little in the warmth of her back against his chest even as his thumb reloads the security app on his cell, because hell, he would’ve let her sleep, would’ve handled this himself if she hadn’t tried to pull a fast one.

“ _Yes,_ ” Beth insists. “ _I_ was the one who had to wait up when Danny missed curfew last month because you were in Alberta, _and_ had to get up when Emma tried to sneak out to go to that party.”

“Can’t get up if I ain’t here, plus you _wanted_ to handle Emma, darlin’,” Rio counters easily, grinning when Elizabeth huffs a little in his arms, and he can feel it in the way her shoulder twitches, the way she shifts, all tense and shit back against him, and he can’t quite help the smug tone to his voice when the camera stream finally re-loads and he adds: “’Sides, thought this one might be one you wanted to know about is all.”

And hell if it ain’t worth it, just to hear her gasp.

*

It don’t take long at least to get the boyfriend (if he even is one) into the spare room, to direct him to the bed which has the makeshift pile of amenities (clean, folded towel, tiny bar of guest soap, a disposable toothbrush) on it that Elizabeth always leaves out like this is a damn AirBNB (not that her sister don’t make a habit of sleepin’ over at least once a week, but still). The kid looks up at him, still a little cagey, but with a weirdly grateful air to him that makes Rio sharpen his look, because shit, it ain’t like he was _invited_.

“You and her are both adults, yeah?” he says, and the kid blinks at him, lips tugging into a nervous line, and _good_ , Rio thinks. At least he hasn’t lost his touch. “I don’t care what you do in those dorms, or hell, at her parents’ place, but this ain’t it. We got kids in this house, so you sneak outta this room tonight, or she sneaks in, this conversation we havin’ gonna be a lot less friendly.”

The kid has the wits to nod at least, and Rio turns on his heel, rubbing a hand back over his head as he crosses the foyer and starts back down towards the dining room where he can see Elizabeth standing over a chair, her grip white knuckled, her face flushed in some combination of exasperation and frustration. Vaguely, he hears her say:

“…what I should be doing is calling your mother.”

And right on cue – Sara’s voice tumblin’ out behind it.

“ _No_ , Aunt Beth, okay, I’m sorry, I am, but you _can’t_ call mom. She’ll _kill_ me.”

Rio rolls his eyes, jaw rocking a little, because shit, that’d be well within her rights. Hopes he’d be able to kill any one of the kids if they showed up to another person’s house in the middle of the night with their hands down somebody’s pants. Or not kid, Rio reminds himself. Shit, hadn’t they gone to Ruby and Stan’s for dinner for Sara’s big two-oh a few months back?

“She wouldn’t,” Elizabeth says. “But she _would_ want to know why you came here in the middle of the night, which is honestly something I’d like to know too.”

And ain’t that the truth, Rio thinks, almost walking past the foot of the stairs towards the dining room, only to pause, because there’s got to be at least one of them eavesdropping. He lets his gaze dart suddenly up, and true to form, it’s all four of them, hovering at the top of the stairs – Danny and Emma and Marcus and Jane. They scatter in a mess of skinny legs and bed socks and Rio snorts, waiting until he hears at least one door close, before starting back towards the dining room.

From the open kitchen doorway, steam seeps into the dining room, a sure sign Elizabeth has boiled the kettle, even if no mugs sit in front of them yet, and Rio lets his gaze drift between them, taking in Elizabeth’s tired, disappointed expression and her set jaw, her strawberry blonde hair longer than it’s been in a while, ghosting down past her shoulder blades, her deep blue floral robe tied up around herself.

Across the table, Sara sits slumped in her seat, properly dressed now at least in some dark green jersey dress (coz shit, she _wasn’t_ by the time they finally got downstairs and found her and the boyfriend in Kenny’s empty room), her hair braided and twisted up off her face to reveal a morose sort of scowl that makes Rio raise an eyebrow.

He leans into the doorframe, gaze flitting back to Elizabeth, who only huffs out an exasperated breath, and he knows her fingers are itching to call Ruby, because of all the places Sara’s supposed to be right now (nine hours away in her dorm at Columbia bein’ the preferred), sneaking into their place with some bright eyed, stuttering boyfriend ain’t it.

“Wouldn’t mind knowin’ how you got a code to the house either,” Rio drawls, interrupting before Elizabeth can start on the next part of her rant, and Sara’s head darts sideways to look at him. She shifts back in her seat, her scowl deepening, before she finally rolls her eyes.

“Kenny gave it to me,” she replies after a minute. “He said I could come over whenever, that you guys wouldn’t care.”

Which - - _huh_ , Rio thinks, snorting out a breath.

“Okay, well, first of all, this might be his _home_ , but it ain’t his _house_ , so it ain’t his code to go passin’ out,” Rio says, and then watching Sara nod, only half listening as she drops a hand to pick a loose thread off her dress, unimpressed with his lecture, he adds: “’Sides, I think if he was givin’ it to you he meant for you to be slippin’ into his bed while he was _in_ it, not with some other guy while he’s holed up in a dorm room a few miles away.”

It gets her attention at least, he thinks, swallowing his amusement when Sara’s head jerks up to look at him properly, her face contorting as she says “ _Gross_ ,” while Elizabeth does some variation of the same on the other side of the table.

Thing is, he ain’t lying though. Kenny’s been moony eyed over Sara since high school, and Rio’s walked in on his bare, pimply ass enough to know he likes _company_ these days. Plus there’s only so many times he can keep that shit to himself before he needs others to suffer with him. He opens his mouth to speak again – maybe load up that image for Sara (it’d keep her out of Kenny’s room after hours at least) – when Elizabeth cuts him off.

“Putting that aside,” she says, hands loosening on the back of the chair. “You _are_ always welcome here, but you’ve got to let us know when you’re coming.”

At Elizabeth’s words, at her tone, Sara’s face falls, her eyes getting glassy, her body not so much slumping as crumpling forwards, like she’s been holdin’ onto something she doesn’t really have the energy to hold onto anymore.

“I know, I’m sorry. I was going to call, but I don’t want mom and dad to know I’m back. They would _lose_ it if they knew I’d left campus during the semester, and like, I’m going back, I _am_ , just I got a bit behind on comparative politics, and then this guy I was kind of seeing made it official with this girl from my lab I didn’t even know he was talking to, let alone - - and - - I just needed a break.”

She sucks in a breath, fingers playing briefly with one of her braids, before going for her wrist, twisting there around it, and Rio’s gaze finds Elizabeth again, watches as a hundred feelings cross her face, thoughts, before she settles on the thread that he knew she would.

“If we call your mom - -”

But Sara doesn’t let her finish.

“She’ll freak out and you know it,” Sara insists, her voice taut. “She’s _obsessed_ with me being at Columbia, if she finds out I’m here, with a boy, because of a boy, she’ll _lose_ it.”

The moment sits. Sara’s gaze firming, but Rio doesn’t see it. All Rio sees is Elizabeth, a look on her face he can’t quite pinpoint, her eyes clouded but hard even as her mouth twists in sympathy.

“You telling her you took a few days off is not going to freak her out,” she says after a minute. “What’s going to _freak her out_ is not knowing where you are.”

It’s enough to make Sara look away, to swipe at her eyes while Elizabeth and Rio both just watch her, and shit, Rio thinks, rolling his shoulders back. This ain’t exactly territory he knows how to walk. He opens his mouth, ready to ask exactly who that boy down the hall is if he ain’t this boyfriend, ready to ask how Sara saw this thing goin’ exactly, when Elizabeth cuts him off.

“You still want me to show you how to make that spiced pear and date tart?”

And that’s enough to make them both look back at Elizabeth.

“Now?” Sara asks tentatively, her voice small, and Elizabeth just shrugs, releasing the chair and starting back towards the kitchen.

“Yeah, why not?”

At the words, Sara looks sideways at Rio, and it’s him who shrugs now, watching as Sara climbs to her feet and slips out after Elizabeth. Rio doesn’t follow, doesn’t even twist so much as to look, just listens as Elizabeth grabs some of the extra pastry she’d made a few weeks ago from the freezer, directing Sara to the cabinets beneath the stove for the pots to poach the pears in, and he knows they’ll talk tonight in the only way Elizabeth really knows how – in between the stir of a spoon and the bubble of somethin’ boiling, and okay, maybe Rio does look.

Maybe he looks in time to see Elizabeth pull pears, butter, milk from the fridge. See Sara hovering by the island, her green dress bright amongst the pale colours of the kitchen. Watches them shift around each other, the exhaustion on Sara’s face, and the deeper, more unknowable exhaustion on Elizabeth’s. Stays just long enough to hear Elizabeth say:

“Your mom loves you _so much_.”

And well, if that ain’t his cue.

Without a sound, Rio slips back out into the hallway and then back up the stairs, letting any lingering thoughts of tonight be put away for tomorrow, letting his mind tug back the sheets of his bed before his hands have the chance to, thinks about how his body can keep it warm until Elizabeth tumbles back in beside him, the night put back to rest, at least until the morning. 

The smell of soap and the apple blossom candle that sits on Elizabeth’s bedside table fills his nose as he nears his bedroom door, but there’s something else there too, thick on the air as he pushes through, and he barely has time to register it before his eyes are fixed instead on exactly what that _something else_ is.

“Nuh-uh,” he says, voice dry with annoyance as he strides through the door, gaze fixing on the two, skinny-limbed figures sprawled out in his bed – Jane cross-legged in the middle in her favourite striped, sausage dog pyjamas, playing a game on the Nintendo in her lap (and ain’t that something? They _know_ there’s no screens after lights out), Marcus lying flat on his belly beside her, his dark hair mussed with sleep, watching whatever it is she’s makin’ those little characters do on that little screen. They don’t even look up at his voice, and Rio rocks his jaw, before adding: “Bed.”

“Technically,” Marcus says, gaze still fixed on the game in Jane’s hands. “We _are_ in bed.”

Beside him, Jane makes a vague noise of agreement, her nose wrinkled and her big, green eyes focused.

“Mr. Peters says ‘specificity is the key that unlocks the sentence’,” she adds, and Rio can feel his nostrils flare, because this is really the _last_ thing he needs right now, watching as Marcus tries to snatch the game off Jane, and Jane flail her arms out to avoid him, almost tossing herself off the bed in the process. Her mousey brown hair is tugged back into a tangled braid which just makes his fingers twitch to fix it almost as much as he knows it makes Elizabeth’s, and shit, if that ain’t who he is now apparently.

“Yeah?” he asks instead. “How’s this for specific then? _Your_ beds. Now.”

And they don’t react, not right away, and vaguely Rio thinks about the fact that he can order around grown ass men – big men, threatening men, feds, politicians, whatever – but two thirteen year olds are more than happy to act like he ain’t shit. His jaw rocks, shoulders roll back, and he’s about ready to heave one of them over his shoulder and march them back to bed, when Jane passes the game to Marcus (who immediately keeps playin’ whatever it was she was), and stares up at him instead.

“Why’d Sara come _here_?”

He probably should’ve seen that question coming. Still, Rio pops an eyebrow, plays it blasé, gesturing to her and Marcus on his bed, and says:

“Why’d you?”

It’s enough to make Jane give him a look like she means to say _touché_ but doesn’t know how to say it yet, but any answer beyond that seems swallowed up for a moment, and Rio starts tugging off his rings, if nothing else, then just for something to do. He drops them on top of the chest of drawers, before twisting to lean against it.

The night air feels pregnant somehow, the space in this room waiting, and it’s sorta hard to tell, because the thing is, sometimes Jane and Marcus do slip into their bedroom out of boredom – Jane having a particular aptitude currently for trying to wear all of Elizabeth’s robes at once and then going to teeter in Emma’s bedroom door and pretend to speak in tongues until her sister’s yellin’ – but it’s not _just_ boredom that makes them show up in here, and tonight - -

Rio sighs, drops his hands to his hips.

“Your cousin’s just havin’ a bit of a rough time at college,” he offers, looking up to catch Jane’s eye. He plays it light, but sympathetic as he adds: “She just needed a night off.”

The words hang for a moment, and he can see her processing them, just like he could see Elizabeth downstairs processing Sara’s – can see the cogs turning in a way that makes him brace himself, but still. He can’t say he expects it when Jane says:

“Kenny comes back from college too. Like, all the time.”

And shit, Rio thinks, sucking in his lips, watching the firm, battle-ready look on her small face, the set to her sausage-dog-pyjama clad shoulders. He lets his gaze shift down to Marcus, who’s attention is fixed still on the game he ain’t supposed to be playing, but it doesn’t take much to see how his fingers have stilled on the controls. How much he’s stopped blinking, a sure fire sign he’s trained his ears to this conversation, and Rio really, really ain’t awake enough for this.

Because the thing is, it’s not like she’s wrong. Kenny’s only halfway through his freshman year, and it feels like he’s back every few weeks, hanging out in the kitchen to pluck at whatever Elizabeth is making, or inserting himself in front of Rio whenever he’s lifting anything heavier than the TV remote (and okay, he _knows_ Kenny was one of the shoulders Elizabeth cried on when Rio was in hospital, but it ain’t like he’s still holed up there). And okay, maybe college wasn’t ever gonna be the most natural fit for Kenny anyway, but he’d wanted to go, and _they’d_ wanted him to go, and he was _there_.

On the bed, Jane stretches out her legs, revealing a pair of candy-striped socks with a hole, her big toe sticking out. He opens his mouth to tell her to take them off, throw them out, but then - - 

Her face is set in that specific way, like she’s wearing Elizabeth’s starter mask, and just - -

“College ain’t easy,” he settles on, like either him or Elizabeth would know, like they _went_ , but damn, that ain’t the point. The point of the life they chose was to give the kids options, and education is a part of that. Still, it doesn’t take an academic to know Kenny’s teeterin’ on the edge of dropping out, no matter Rio’s threats or Elizabeth’s encouragements, and now this thing with Sara - - and fuck, she wasn’t even one of _theirs_.

“Maybe I don’t wanna go,” Jane says suddenly, and well, didn’t take an academic to know that was coming either. Vaguely, Rio hears Marcus’ character die on whatever game it was he was playing.

“Yeah, what you thinkin’?” Rio asks, already annoyed again, resting back against the chest of drawers. “Think your aunt might still have a hook up at that grocery store for you? Maybe a diner’ll take you. You any good at bussin’ dishes?”

Jane scoffs, and Rio raises both eyebrows at her, unimpressed, the reminder that that’s what her aunt had done for a long time at least enough to make Jane quickly squirm, to look embarrassed, buoyed by the memory.

“I don’t know,” she says after a minute, and right, Rio thinks, pushing up off the chest of drawers.

“Okay, well when you come up with somethin’, you let me and your mom know, yeah? Until then, the plan is college.”

It’s not what she wants to hear, Rio knows that, but shit, it’s three am, and arguin’ with his thirteen-year-old daughter about five years from now ain’t exactly how he wants to spend the few hours of sleep he might still steal before the chaos of the day starts. He can’t really help the twitch in his chest though when he sees Jane flush pink, her toes curl in her socks (most of them, anyway), her bottom lip wobble. Rio lets his gaze slide over to Marcus, just for something else to look at it, when his son holds his hands up, game console and all, in surrender.

“Don’t look at me, I _wanna_ go to college.”

Which - - well. Rio snorts, rolling his eyes, before looking back at Jane’s sullen face. He huffs out a breath, shaking his head.

“Darlin’, you ain’t even in highschool. You don’t gotta worry about this stuff yet, ai’ght? Just focus on Mr. Peters English class, yeah?”

And apparently that was the wrong thing to say, because something in it has Jane scowling all over again, her shoulders resetting, her green eyes hard. 

“Emma said we should be.”

Which checks out, Rio thinks dryly, raising an eyebrow at Jane.

“Emma said what?”

“Emma said we should be thinking about college _now_ , because otherwise we wouldn’t be smart enough to go anywhere good, and we’d end up at Wayne State like Kenny.”

Rio’s jaw rocks, irritation twisting into frustration, eyebrow still raised.

“Oh, she did, huh?”

Jane doesn’t take her eyes away from Rio, but Rio’s gaze slip back to Marcus, who surreptitiously nods.

“Wayne State’s a good school for Kenny.”

Because shit, it _is_. He was never gonna go Ivy – never had the head for that – but he worked hard the last few years of highschool, really tried it, and maybe he was a bit aimless, but he’d figure it out. He had options after all, and college was gonna give him more, and - -

Jane scoffs, and Rio narrows his eyes at her.

“Maybe it ain’t Columbia,” he says dryly. “But - - ”

“Well, it doesn’t even matter, because _neither_ of them like it.”

And it’s sudden, the way that dries up the words in his mouth. His gaze stays rested on Jane, her cheeks reddening all over again, her eyes bright and her chin thrust forwards and _huh_ , Rio thinks. He sucks on his teeth.

“That what you’re worried about? Not likin’ college?”

It’s instant – the biting way Jane snaps “ _No_ ,” and maybe he’s not much better, because his voice is sharp when he says:

“Watch your tone.”

And at least Jane has the head to look reprimanded. She rocks back, and Rio’s gaze skirts out again to Marcus beside her, clocks the carefully neutral look on his son’s face, and then Rio looks back at Jane, sullen and glassy eyed on the bed, and just - - _fuck_. He scrubs a hand over the back of his head.

“Then what’s this about, darlin’?”

He softens his tone as best he can, lets the moment sit, lets _Jane_ sit, but it’s late, and he knows she ain’t ready yet. Can see it on her face, in the way her bottom lip quivers before her jaw resets, and the next thing anyone knows, she’s scooting across the mattress and sliding off the bed. Which - - fuck, ain’t _ideal_. 

“Jane,” he starts, but Jane twists on the spot, her messy braid flinging over her shoulder as she glares at him, exasperated.

“Nothing!” she insists, little chest heaving. “It’s about _nothing!_ ”

With that, she storms out of the room, a grey cloud thick around her as she stomps back down to her bedroom, and she’s lucky Kenny ain’t home – that it’s her quieter siblings who still are – because shit, that kid would’ve popped off at that. Still, Rio stares briefly after her, watches her disappear from view, hopefully into her bedroom, and he’s big enough to admit he could’ve handled that whole thing better.

He rolls his shoulders back, walking over to the bed and holding a hand out to Marcus until his son places the Nintendo in it, and at least that ain’t a fight tonight, even though it probably should be given they both know they ain’t allowed games after lights out. Shoving it into the top drawer of his bedside table, Rio sits heavily down on the bed, pinching the bridge of his nose, before twisting slightly as the bed moves, just enough to see Marcus scooting across it to sit beside him.

“You know what that was about?” he asks him, and Marcus hums, pushing his long legs over the edge.

“I don’t know. Jane’s just being Jane,” he says with a shrug, swinging his legs briefly, before looking back at Rio. “And it’s weird. With Kenny gone, and like, Danny soon too. And then Emma, and then it’ll be us.”

And it’s always weird, to think about it like that. Not that Rio does particularly on his own, but it’s been something that hasn’t seemed far from Elizabeth’s mind since Kenny started his senior year of high school. The domino effect of them growing up. At least there were a couple of years between Kenny and Danny, after that they’d be one after the other, and then two at once, and there’s something in it that’s a thrill, something that makes Rio think of languid nights sprawled beside Elizabeth with no homework, no arguin’ kids, no afterschool activities or dances or sports or game nights, but there’s something else in that too where he just thinks - -

_Huh_.

“Lotta change,” he agrees after a moment, and Marcus nods.

“I don’t think she likes it. That’s all.”

Rio looks at him, frowning for a minute, watching his son’s bright eyes stare back at him, then down, then back, and he hears the _we_ in that _she_ , and he raises a hand before he can help it, running it through Marcus’ thick, black hair, watching his son briefly lean into his touch. Feels the warmth of him, the firmness of him, and Rio manages to hold that minute before Marcus remembers to think he’s too old for this now, and he squirms out of Rio’s grip, disappearing out the door and escaping back towards his own room or his sister’s, Rio doesn’t have the energy to figure out.

He thinks he’s asleep before his head hits the pillow, the quiet, muffled sound of Elizabeth and Sara in the kitchen beneath him enough to lull him to the safety of it again.

*

He feels her before he hears her, before he sees her. The weight of her body sinking back into his chest, and Rio blinks weary eyes back open as he feels the line of her back settle against the hard line of his torso, feels her small shoulder at his collarbone, her hair soft at his neck. It’s too easy then, for his hand to squeeze her hip before curling around her waist, clutching in the silky fabric of her nightie.

“She ai’ght?” he asks, voice still hoarse with sleep, and Elizabeth makes a noise of affirmation.

“She’s going to call Ruby and Stan in the morning.”

And good, Rio thinks, curling his body tighter around hers, entangling their legs low, so he can feel the sharp knob of her ankle against his calf.

“You text ‘em already?”

“Hours ago,” she says, her hand coming up to his on her belly, and he expects her to cover it, to entwine their fingers, but she doesn’t, not yet. Just rubs the soft pads of her fingers over his knuckles, then down the length of each of his fingers. “I told them to act surprised though.”

“That’s good.”

She makes a vague, humming noise of agreement, and Rio lets his eyes slip shut again. Lets the invitation of sleep find him, lets it lead him where it wants him. As his mind starts to stretch, it’s too easy to lose himself in the night – the sound of distant traffic, nighttime birds, a neighbour getting home from a late shift. Closer, he hears the toilet flush, the slow pad of feet back towards a bedroom, the slightest, barely consequential hum of the security system reactivating, and Elizabeth must’ve done that herself when she came back to bed. Rio yawns, pushing his nose down into Elizabeth’s neck, pressing a kiss to the top of her shoulder just because, when she says:

“She doesn’t see it.”

Rio pauses, feeling it when Elizabeth’s hand disappears from over his, leaving the back of his cold. His eyes slip back open, but he can’t see her like this – not her face at least, just the back of her head, the crown of her strawberry blonde hair.

“Doesn’t see what?”

“Everything Ruby did for her.”

The words aren’t offered to him – they’re offered to the wall in the distance, given like a gift to it, and Rio frowns, smoothing his hand at her belly, back to her hip. He uses it to leverage himself up a little, trying to see her face, but she only curls further away from him, the darkness shifting above her to conceal her.

“Thought they’d had that conversation,” he says slowly. “About what we all do?”

Because he remembers it. Remembers Ruby and Stan had been the first to break, to want to talk to Sara about it back when she was still in highschool, how much it meant he and Elizabeth had to work out what the fuck that meant for them, for theirs, for - - shit, all of them. How much they fought over it. How Elizabeth had thought _maybe_ , how Rio had thought _never_. How much they’d wondered if they could trust Sara to bite her tongue, at least until Annie had told Ben too.

How much it had stung, to get out of hospital and know Elizabeth had told Kenny.

“They have, but she doesn’t understand it,” Elizabeth says quietly. “I mean, how could she? Ruby did those things so Sara wouldn’t _have_ to understand it. So she could grow up and be healthy and safe and have options, and now she does, and she can’t go back, no matter what Ruby tells her. She thinks Ruby’s too hard on her. She thinks Ruby had options because _she_ does. Like, she knows in her head that Ruby worked at the diner because she had to, that we robbed Fine and Frugal because we had to, but - - ”

He still can’t see her face, but he knows it somehow, that she’s frowning, her forehead furrowed so deep the skin between her eyebrows pinches, and he squeezes her hip again.

“They won’t ever understand.”

And shit, Rio thinks, he hopes not. Hopes Marcus doesn’t ever get it, that none of the kids do, because wasn’t that the point?

Slowly, Rio lies back down behind her, watching her neck twist slightly, knows her gaze is following his movements, clocking them, and he smooths his hand back around to her belly, reknots itself in the fabric of her nightie, retangles their legs, and he thinks _sleep_. Thinks sleep now, until the edge of this moment has softened, and in the morning, he’ll slip inside her, get her sighing and breathless on him until this moment escapes them both, and it’s just the two of them again, without the space for anything else.

He moves his hand up, just enough to cup one of her breasts, his thumb running over the lace trim at the neck, feeling the smooth, soft skin of her underneath, and she sighs, curving back into him again.

“Sometimes I’m not even jealous of it,” she says dreamily, and Rio hums.

“Of what?”

“Of all that choice.”

He blinks, stares at the back of his head, thumb stilling in its caress of her breast.

“You feelin’ bad you’ve given them choices?” he asks her, and at least that’s enough for her to shift, to blink owlishly over her shoulder at him, before cringing a little at herself.

“No, of course not. I just - - I guess I want them to be happy. Like. All the time.”

She breathes out a laugh with it, bites her lip, and Rio thinks about Sara downstairs, glassy eyed and out of school over a boy. Thinks of Jane and Marcus, sullen and worried in their beds.

“Nobody’s happy all the time,” he says, voice low, and Elizabeth makes a small sound in the back of her throat, insulted almost, like she’s heard his words as a placation instead of a commiseration.

“I know that,” she insists, and Rio sighs, and maybe she hears that too, because when she talks this time, it’s slower, softer: “But sometimes I look at what I’ve - - _we’ve_ done for them, and I don’t know. They can do whatever they want, and they just keep coming home.”

And ain’t that the truth, he thinks, entwining their fingers at her belly, and he can feel something in her lurching, maybe feel it in him too, so he noses against her neck instead, says: “Thought you wanted to keep ‘em here,” meaning it as a tease, but Elizabeth huffs, pulling her fingers out of his.

“You know that’s not what I mean.”

And the thing is, he does. Knows what she means too well. That you do what you have to to give your kid the world and then when they have it, they want to give it back, or they don’t want to take it at all. He thinks about Kenny and Sara, both boomeranging back from college. Thinks about Jane, not wanting to go at all. Thinks about the way their home has felt so steady, so stable, and now it’s reshaping, rebuilding itself around them as the kids grow up and leave and come back and hold on and try to break any grip, but fuck, ain’t that a part of all of this?

Ain’t that a part of doing this job well?

Rio swallows, hand loosening on her belly, moving back to her hip, then away altogether, and he wets his lips as he says:

“You got regrets, Elizabeth?”

She doesn’t reply right away, and when she does, her voice is small, and she speaks to the wall, not to him.

“Yes.”

Something in him stutters, holds, and he can’t name it, couldn’t if he wanted to, his mouth dry as he asks:

“You got regrets about our family?”

And at least that’s enough to make her twist around, to look at him, really, and maybe that’s worse he thinks, because her face is too open, her eyes too bright, her face half buried in the pillow beside him as she shakes her head slowly, her gaze never leaving his.

“No.”

“You got regrets about us?”

The words are out of his mouth before he can think to stop them, his voice low, husky with sleep and something else he can’t name, and he doesn’t know what answer he wants from that, because he knows they’re in it. Knows they’re good. Knows what they have, but fuck, it ain’t like it’s ever been easy.

Still, she smiles, and somethin’ in him grows so fast it splits.

“Only that I go too easy on you,” she hums, and he can’t breathe right, something too warm oozing out of that split in him, but still, he pops an eyebrow, tilts his head forwards.

“Oh, is that right?”

“Mmhmm,” she says, a grin twitching at her lips. She runs a hand over his face, his nerves sparking under her touch, and when she drops her thumb to his lower lip, tugging it down just a little, he sees it in her, the shards that were lost when he broke. “Let you pick up bad habits.”

With that, he grabs her ass, hauling her up against him, just to hear her laugh, nipping at her chin in the process, and she’s still laughing when he leans up to kiss her, feeling her arms circling his neck, and it’s too easy then, to lose himself in her body, in the taste of her, the feel. Relishing in just how whole he feels when he’s holding her. To let his hands wander the expanse of her body as her own fingers anchor at the back of his head, and they just kiss for a minute, two, but then - -

Then he tastes that too.

The moment that the sadness edges back, that _somethin’_ starting to colour her kisses, sharpen her fingers, and he sighs, pulling back enough to see her.

Shadows cross her features, darken the soft lines of her soft face, and shit, he thinks, jaw clenching before he can help it, because it’s about Ruby because it’s about Sara, and more than that, it’s about them and theirs.

“They don’t gotta understand,” Rio tells her. “They’re growin’ up. Ruby’s done her part, yeah? Just like you said. She gave her options. What she does with those options - - what Kenny does with _his_ \- -”

Rio’s mouth hangs open for a minute, and then he closes it, shakes his head, because fuck if he knows. It’s not like she’s wrong. There is something there in it all, and he sighs and this time, it’s Elizabeth who kisses first, her hands drifting from his neck to the back of his head, and she doesn’t say anything else, but maybe he tastes it on her lips, feels it in her touch, as her nails scratch through his buzz cut, as her other hand slips down between them, palming his cock, maybe he hears it in her stuttering breath, that maybe she didn’t have choices for a long time, maybe he didn’t either, but maybe they chose each other, chose this, chose now.

And the kids will do what they do, he thinks, sliding his hands up her nightie.

And he’ll keep choosing her. 


End file.
